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I. Christianity is a religion that has unity as an ideal but has experienced conflict and division throughout its history. A. The ideal of unity is expressed in the New Testament and is stated by the creed as one of the four “marks of the church.” B. The early centuries were marked by a variety of severe conflicts concerning belief and practice: 1. The New Testament shows sharp disagreements between Christian groups (see Galatians, 2 and 3 John). 2. The 2nd century struggle for self-definition involved sharp ideological and political divisions. 3. The battles involving Trinitarian and Christological doctrine in the 4th and 5th centuries likewise had ecclesiastical and political overtones. C. The three great families in Christianity arose from specific contentious circumstances between the 11th and 16th centuries and led to three distinct and usually competing versions of the religion. Each of them claims to best represent the essence of Christianity. 2. Each of them claims a particular kind of continuity with Christian origins. 3. All of them share the same basic story, creed, and moral teaching but differ most on questions of organization, theological emphasis, and worship.

Why is religion so diverse and energetic? Scholars have advanced several explanations. One theory is that the separation of church and state has prevented religion from ever being discredited by association with the moral compromises of political life. In Britain, by contrast, the established Church of England is sometimes referred to, disparagingly, as “the Tory Party at prayer.” B. A related idea is that separation means that churches and ministers, lacking government subsidy, have always had to “sell” themselves, offering a message and a service that the public is willing to “buy.” C. A second theory is that religion preserves one aspect of America’s ethnic diversity. Second-generation immigrants lose most of their ancestors’ folkways, often even the language, but they keep the old faith and “Americanize” it. D. A third theory is that in a society with such high levels of mobility, a relatively rootless population can quickly create a sense of local community by joining local churches. Highly localized Old World societies have a broad range of alternatives. E. A theory popular in the nineteenth century was that God had singled out America for a destiny in evangelizing the world. All but the most evangelical scholars are more reticent about this theory now, especially given that God’s purposes cannot be measured and studied according to our academic methods.

Why is religion so diverse and energetic? Scholars have advanced several explanations. One theory is that the separation of church and state has prevented religion from ever being discredited by association with the moral compromises of political life. In Britain, by contrast, the established Church of England is sometimes referred to, disparagingly, as “the Tory Party at prayer.” B. A related idea is that separation means that churches and ministers, lacking government subsidy, have always had to “sell” themselves, offering a message and a service that the public is willing to “buy.” C. A second theory is that religion preserves one aspect of America’s ethnic diversity. Second-generation immigrants lose most of their ancestors’ folkways, often even the language, but they keep the old faith and “Americanize” it. D. A third theory is that in a society with such high levels of mobility, a relatively rootless population can quickly create a sense of local community by joining local churches. Highly localized Old World societies have a broad range of alternatives. E. A theory popular in the nineteenth century was that God had singled out America for a destiny in evangelizing the world. All but the most evangelical scholars are more reticent about this theory now, especially given that God’s purposes cannot be measured and studied according to our academic methods.

Why is religion so diverse and energetic? Scholars have advanced several explanations. One theory is that the separation of church and state has prevented religion from ever being discredited by association with the moral compromises of political life. In Britain, by contrast, the established Church of England is sometimes referred to, disparagingly, as “the Tory Party at prayer.” B. A related idea is that separation means that churches and ministers, lacking government subsidy, have always had to “sell” themselves, offering a message and a service that the public is willing to “buy.” C. A second theory is that religion preserves one aspect of America’s ethnic diversity. Second-generation immigrants lose most of their ancestors’ folkways, often even the language, but they keep the old faith and “Americanize” it. D. A third theory is that in a society with such high levels of mobility, a relatively rootless population can quickly create a sense of local community by joining local churches. Highly localized Old World societies have a broad range of alternatives. E. A theory popular in the nineteenth century was that God had singled out America for a destiny in evangelizing the world. All but the most evangelical scholars are more reticent about this theory now, especially given that God’s purposes cannot be measured and studied according to our academic methods.

Why is religion so diverse and energetic? Scholars have advanced several explanations. One theory is that the separation of church and state has prevented religion from ever being discredited by association with the moral compromises of political life. In Britain, by contrast, the established Church of England is sometimes referred to, disparagingly, as “the Tory Party at prayer.” B. A related idea is that separation means that churches and ministers, lacking government subsidy, have always had to “sell” themselves, offering a message and a service that the public is willing to “buy.” C. A second theory is that religion preserves one aspect of America’s ethnic diversity. Second-generation immigrants lose most of their ancestors’ folkways, often even the language, but they keep the old faith and “Americanize” it. D. A third theory is that in a society with such high levels of mobility, a relatively rootless population can quickly create a sense of local community by joining local churches. Highly localized Old World societies have a broad range of alternatives. E. A theory popular in the nineteenth century was that God had singled out America for a destiny in evangelizing the world. All but the most evangelical scholars are more reticent about this theory now, especially given that God’s purposes cannot be measured and studied according to our academic methods.

Why is religion so diverse and energetic? Scholars have advanced several explanations. One theory is that the separation of church and state has prevented religion from ever being discredited by association with the moral compromises of political life. In Britain, by contrast, the established Church of England is sometimes referred to, disparagingly, as “the Tory Party at prayer.” B. A related idea is that separation means that churches and ministers, lacking government subsidy, have always had to “sell” themselves, offering a message and a service that the public is willing to “buy.” C. A second theory is that religion preserves one aspect of America’s ethnic diversity. Second-generation immigrants lose most of their ancestors’ folkways, often even the language, but they keep the old faith and “Americanize” it. D. A third theory is that in a society with such high levels of mobility, a relatively rootless population can quickly create a sense of local community by joining local churches. Highly localized Old World societies have a broad range of alternatives. E. A theory popular in the nineteenth century was that God had singled out America for a destiny in evangelizing the world. All but the most evangelical scholars are more reticent about this theory now, especially given that God’s purposes cannot be measured and studied according to our academic methods.

Why is religion so diverse and energetic? Scholars have advanced several explanations. One theory is that the separation of church and state has prevented religion from ever being discredited by association with the moral compromises of political life. In Britain, by contrast, the established Church of England is sometimes referred to, disparagingly, as “the Tory Party at prayer.” B. A related idea is that separation means that churches and ministers, lacking government subsidy, have always had to “sell” themselves, offering a message and a service that the public is willing to “buy.” C. A second theory is that religion preserves one aspect of America’s ethnic diversity. Second-generation immigrants lose most of their ancestors’ folkways, often even the language, but they keep the old faith and “Americanize” it. D. A third theory is that in a society with such high levels of mobility, a relatively rootless population can quickly create a sense of local community by joining local churches. Highly localized Old World societies have a broad range of alternatives. E. A theory popular in the nineteenth century was that God had singled out America for a destiny in evangelizing the world. All but the most evangelical scholars are more reticent about this theory now, especially given that God’s purposes cannot be measured and studied according to our academic methods.

The religious lives of native Americans are contrasted with the religious situation in Europe during the first century of transatlantic contact. The religious characters of colonial settlements from Spain, France, and England are discussed to show how numerous competing groups of Protestants, Catholics, and native Americans treated one another’s forms of religious life and worship. In an age before pluralism and tolerance were virtues, these confrontations were often starkly hostile. Famous incidents, including the work of the Spanish inquisition in America, the Mayflower pilgrims’ rigorous and joyless approach to life, and the Salem witch trials, are put in context, in lectures designed to explain rather than moralize. From the colonial period, the series moves on to discuss the role of religion in the creation of the American republic. First in the Revolutionary War, then later in the Civil War, combatants on both sides believed that they were doing God’s will and fighting on the side of the angels. Religious conviction also played a central role in the nineteenth century’s numerous reform movements, but often in contradictory ways. Slaveholders could point to as many biblical passages justifying their way of life as abolitionists could find to condemn them. Temperance, Sabbath keeping, urban reform, and women’s rights all sought justification in the Protestant tradition. A series of shocks complicated the American religious situation in the mid-nineteenth century. The first was the arrival of a large number of Catholic immigrants to what had been, for the preceding two centuries, a largely Protestant place. Catholics from Ireland and, later, Germany, Italy, and Poland, struggled to show that despite their faith and its foreign leader (the Pope), they were entirely loyal to America. At times, even so, they had to protect themselves against organized anti-Catholic political parties and even against the attacks of anti-Catholic mobs. Growing numbers of Jewish immigrants further diversified the urban religious landscape in the later nineteenth century and also struggled against Protestant intolerance. The second shock was the rapid growth of industrial cities and of a huge property-less industrial working class, vulnerable to fluctuations in the business cycle. Religious leaders had to rethink the relationships among virtue, prosperity, and God’s favor in a situation when employment opportunities outstripped the influence of any individual’s will. Did not Jesus, a carpenter’s son, teach charity, poverty, compassion, and sharing, rather than the single-minded entrepreneurial individualism that was winning America’s material rewards? And which was more important: to reform the whole of society along Christian lines or simply to save individual souls, whatever their material circumstances? A third shock came from the nineteenth century’s discoveries in geology, biology, physics, archaeology, and comparative religion, all of which appeared to cast doubt on the reliability and authority of the Bible. Evolution in particular presented a world of constant predation and strife, promising only extinction to the losers, rather than a world whose outward harmony proved the existence of God. Close study of the ruins and texts of the ancient Near East showed that dozens of civilizations had shared with early Judaism its creation and flood myths and its belief in a series of miraculous divine interventions. Perhaps Judaism and Christianity had survived out of this world by a series of historical coincidences that had more to do with Roman imperial power than God’s blessing. The twentieth century inherited these nineteenth-century dilemmas, which continue to resonate up to the present in, for example, the conflict between liberal Protestants and fundamentalists. Later parts of the course will follow them, while paying special attention to the way they affected relations between church and state. Ever since the Revolution, citizens have cherished the First Amendment principles of church-state separation and religious freedom. Mid- twentieth–century cases involving Jehovah’s Witnesses, Christian Scientists, the Amish, and such “cult” religions as the People’s Temple and the “Moonies” forced the Supreme Court to decide where to draw the line between these two principles. The court sometimes shocked citizens, as when in 1962 and 1963, it decreed that school prayers and Bible reading were unconstitutional. America became a great power in the twentieth century and played a leading role in the two world wars and the Cold War. Religious Americans agonized over how they should respond to war. Was it a Christian’s duty to fight “hunnish barbarism” in World War I, as preachers like Billy Sunday believed? Or should they, as a brave minority argued, follow Jesus in turning the other cheek? When the war ended, many of the more bloodthirsty Christians and Jews felt embarrassed to have been so carried away by the call to fight. No sooner had a majority of them concluded that the pacifist option was morally superior, however, than Hitler rose to power. War, and particularly the Holocaust, continue to resonate up to the present and to influence many corners of American religious life. The social revolutions of the twentieth century also had religious consequences. Fundamentalism proved itself adaptable to new technologies, such as radio and television, even to space travel, as Hal Lindsay showed in The Late, Great Planet Earth (1970). Generations of immigrants and their descendants assimilated to American life, abandoning old languages and customs but maintaining their religious allegiances. Catholicism and Judaism both took on a distinctive American flavor, which sometimes caused friction with co-religionists abroad, in Rome and Israel. Religion stood squarely at the center of the upheavals of the 1960s. Martin Luther King, Jr., and most other black civil rights leaders were ministers, inspired by the gospel message. Religious conviction likewise intensified resistance to the Vietnam War and played a key role in energizing the feminist movement Some Americans, disillusioned by the Judeo-Christian tradition, which they blamed for the nation’s woes, turned to the Moslem tradition (the Nation of Islam) or to Asian spirituality, seeking gurus in India or learning Zen Buddhist meditation techniques. At the same time, changes in the immigration laws enabled large numbers of Asian immigrants to move to America, bringing their own traditions and sometimes bumping up against unfamiliar American versions of Buddhism, Islam, and Hinduism. Exploration of new levels of religious diversity in the last three decades will close the series, along with conclusions about the way America’s populations and traditions have nurtured its religious diversity and vitality.

The religious lives of native Americans are contrasted with the religious situation in Europe during the first century of transatlantic contact. The religious characters of colonial settlements from Spain, France, and England are discussed to show how numerous competing groups of Protestants, Catholics, and native Americans treated one another’s forms of religious life and worship. In an age before pluralism and tolerance were virtues, these confrontations were often starkly hostile. Famous incidents, including the work of the Spanish inquisition in America, the Mayflower pilgrims’ rigorous and joyless approach to life, and the Salem witch trials, are put in context, in lectures designed to explain rather than moralize. From the colonial period, the series moves on to discuss the role of religion in the creation of the American republic. First in the Revolutionary War, then later in the Civil War, combatants on both sides believed that they were doing God’s will and fighting on the side of the angels. Religious conviction also played a central role in the nineteenth century’s numerous reform movements, but often in contradictory ways. Slaveholders could point to as many biblical passages justifying their way of life as abolitionists could find to condemn them. Temperance, Sabbath keeping, urban reform, and women’s rights all sought justification in the Protestant tradition. A series of shocks complicated the American religious situation in the mid-nineteenth century. The first was the arrival of a large number of Catholic immigrants to what had been, for the preceding two centuries, a largely Protestant place. Catholics from Ireland and, later, Germany, Italy, and Poland, struggled to show that despite their faith and its foreign leader (the Pope), they were entirely loyal to America. At times, even so, they had to protect themselves against organized anti-Catholic political parties and even against the attacks of anti-Catholic mobs. Growing numbers of Jewish immigrants further diversified the urban religious landscape in the later nineteenth century and also struggled against Protestant intolerance. The second shock was the rapid growth of industrial cities and of a huge property-less industrial working class, vulnerable to fluctuations in the business cycle. Religious leaders had to rethink the relationships among virtue, prosperity, and God’s favor in a situation when employment opportunities outstripped the influence of any individual’s will. Did not Jesus, a carpenter’s son, teach charity, poverty, compassion, and sharing, rather than the single-minded entrepreneurial individualism that was winning America’s material rewards? And which was more important: to reform the whole of society along Christian lines or simply to save individual souls, whatever their material circumstances? A third shock came from the nineteenth century’s discoveries in geology, biology, physics, archaeology, and comparative religion, all of which appeared to cast doubt on the reliability and authority of the Bible. Evolution in particular presented a world of constant predation and strife, promising only extinction to the losers, rather than a world whose outward harmony proved the existence of God. Close study of the ruins and texts of the ancient Near East showed that dozens of civilizations had shared with early Judaism its creation and flood myths and its belief in a series of miraculous divine interventions. Perhaps Judaism and Christianity had survived out of this world by a series of historical coincidences that had more to do with Roman imperial power than God’s blessing. The twentieth century inherited these nineteenth-century dilemmas, which continue to resonate up to the present in, for example, the conflict between liberal Protestants and fundamentalists. Later parts of the course will follow them, while paying special attention to the way they affected relations between church and state. Ever since the Revolution, citizens have cherished the First Amendment principles of church-state separation and religious freedom. Mid- twentieth–century cases involving Jehovah’s Witnesses, Christian Scientists, the Amish, and such “cult” religions as the People’s Temple and the “Moonies” forced the Supreme Court to decide where to draw the line between these two principles. The court sometimes shocked citizens, as when in 1962 and 1963, it decreed that school prayers and Bible reading were unconstitutional. America became a great power in the twentieth century and played a leading role in the two world wars and the Cold War. Religious Americans agonized over how they should respond to war. Was it a Christian’s duty to fight “hunnish barbarism” in World War I, as preachers like Billy Sunday believed? Or should they, as a brave minority argued, follow Jesus in turning the other cheek? When the war ended, many of the more bloodthirsty Christians and Jews felt embarrassed to have been so carried away by the call to fight. No sooner had a majority of them concluded that the pacifist option was morally superior, however, than Hitler rose to power. War, and particularly the Holocaust, continue to resonate up to the present and to influence many corners of American religious life. The social revolutions of the twentieth century also had religious consequences. Fundamentalism proved itself adaptable to new technologies, such as radio and television, even to space travel, as Hal Lindsay showed in The Late, Great Planet Earth (1970). Generations of immigrants and their descendants assimilated to American life, abandoning old languages and customs but maintaining their religious allegiances. Catholicism and Judaism both took on a distinctive American flavor, which sometimes caused friction with co-religionists abroad, in Rome and Israel. Religion stood squarely at the center of the upheavals of the 1960s. Martin Luther King, Jr., and most other black civil rights leaders were ministers, inspired by the gospel message. Religious conviction likewise intensified resistance to the Vietnam War and played a key role in energizing the feminist movement Some Americans, disillusioned by the Judeo-Christian tradition, which they blamed for the nation’s woes, turned to the Moslem tradition (the Nation of Islam) or to Asian spirituality, seeking gurus in India or learning Zen Buddhist meditation techniques. At the same time, changes in the immigration laws enabled large numbers of Asian immigrants to move to America, bringing their own traditions and sometimes bumping up against unfamiliar American versions of Buddhism, Islam, and Hinduism. Exploration of new levels of religious diversity in the last three decades will close the series, along with conclusions about the way America’s populations and traditions have nurtured its religious diversity and vitality.

The religious lives of native Americans are contrasted with the religious situation in Europe during the first century of transatlantic contact. The religious characters of colonial settlements from Spain, France, and England are discussed to show how numerous competing groups of Protestants, Catholics, and native Americans treated one another’s forms of religious life and worship. In an age before pluralism and tolerance were virtues, these confrontations were often starkly hostile. Famous incidents, including the work of the Spanish inquisition in America, the Mayflower pilgrims’ rigorous and joyless approach to life, and the Salem witch trials, are put in context, in lectures designed to explain rather than moralize. From the colonial period, the series moves on to discuss the role of religion in the creation of the American republic. First in the Revolutionary War, then later in the Civil War, combatants on both sides believed that they were doing God’s will and fighting on the side of the angels. Religious conviction also played a central role in the nineteenth century’s numerous reform movements, but often in contradictory ways. Slaveholders could point to as many biblical passages justifying their way of life as abolitionists could find to condemn them. Temperance, Sabbath keeping, urban reform, and women’s rights all sought justification in the Protestant tradition. A series of shocks complicated the American religious situation in the mid-nineteenth century. The first was the arrival of a large number of Catholic immigrants to what had been, for the preceding two centuries, a largely Protestant place. Catholics from Ireland and, later, Germany, Italy, and Poland, struggled to show that despite their faith and its foreign leader (the Pope), they were entirely loyal to America. At times, even so, they had to protect themselves against organized anti-Catholic political parties and even against the attacks of anti-Catholic mobs. Growing numbers of Jewish immigrants further diversified the urban religious landscape in the later nineteenth century and also struggled against Protestant intolerance. The second shock was the rapid growth of industrial cities and of a huge property-less industrial working class, vulnerable to fluctuations in the business cycle. Religious leaders had to rethink the relationships among virtue, prosperity, and God’s favor in a situation when employment opportunities outstripped the influence of any individual’s will. Did not Jesus, a carpenter’s son, teach charity, poverty, compassion, and sharing, rather than the single-minded entrepreneurial individualism that was winning America’s material rewards? And which was more important: to reform the whole of society along Christian lines or simply to save individual souls, whatever their material circumstances? A third shock came from the nineteenth century’s discoveries in geology, biology, physics, archaeology, and comparative religion, all of which appeared to cast doubt on the reliability and authority of the Bible. Evolution in particular presented a world of constant predation and strife, promising only extinction to the losers, rather than a world whose outward harmony proved the existence of God. Close study of the ruins and texts of the ancient Near East showed that dozens of civilizations had shared with early Judaism its creation and flood myths and its belief in a series of miraculous divine interventions. Perhaps Judaism and Christianity had survived out of this world by a series of historical coincidences that had more to do with Roman imperial power than God’s blessing. The twentieth century inherited these nineteenth-century dilemmas, which continue to resonate up to the present in, for example, the conflict between liberal Protestants and fundamentalists. Later parts of the course will follow them, while paying special attention to the way they affected relations between church and state. Ever since the Revolution, citizens have cherished the First Amendment principles of church-state separation and religious freedom. Mid- twentieth–century cases involving Jehovah’s Witnesses, Christian Scientists, the Amish, and such “cult” religions as the People’s Temple and the “Moonies” forced the Supreme Court to decide where to draw the line between these two principles. The court sometimes shocked citizens, as when in 1962 and 1963, it decreed that school prayers and Bible reading were unconstitutional. America became a great power in the twentieth century and played a leading role in the two world wars and the Cold War. Religious Americans agonized over how they should respond to war. Was it a Christian’s duty to fight “hunnish barbarism” in World War I, as preachers like Billy Sunday believed? Or should they, as a brave minority argued, follow Jesus in turning the other cheek? When the war ended, many of the more bloodthirsty Christians and Jews felt embarrassed to have been so carried away by the call to fight. No sooner had a majority of them concluded that the pacifist option was morally superior, however, than Hitler rose to power. War, and particularly the Holocaust, continue to resonate up to the present and to influence many corners of American religious life. The social revolutions of the twentieth century also had religious consequences. Fundamentalism proved itself adaptable to new technologies, such as radio and television, even to space travel, as Hal Lindsay showed in The Late, Great Planet Earth (1970). Generations of immigrants and their descendants assimilated to American life, abandoning old languages and customs but maintaining their religious allegiances. Catholicism and Judaism both took on a distinctive American flavor, which sometimes caused friction with co-religionists abroad, in Rome and Israel. Religion stood squarely at the center of the upheavals of the 1960s. Martin Luther King, Jr., and most other black civil rights leaders were ministers, inspired by the gospel message. Religious conviction likewise intensified resistance to the Vietnam War and played a key role in energizing the feminist movement Some Americans, disillusioned by the Judeo-Christian tradition, which they blamed for the nation’s woes, turned to the Moslem tradition (the Nation of Islam) or to Asian spirituality, seeking gurus in India or learning Zen Buddhist meditation techniques. At the same time, changes in the immigration laws enabled large numbers of Asian immigrants to move to America, bringing their own traditions and sometimes bumping up against unfamiliar American versions of Buddhism, Islam, and Hinduism. Exploration of new levels of religious diversity in the last three decades will close the series, along with conclusions about the way America’s populations and traditions have nurtured its religious diversity and vitality.

The religious lives of native Americans are contrasted with the religious situation in Europe during the first century of transatlantic contact. The religious characters of colonial settlements from Spain, France, and England are discussed to show how numerous competing groups of Protestants, Catholics, and native Americans treated one another’s forms of religious life and worship. In an age before pluralism and tolerance were virtues, these confrontations were often starkly hostile. Famous incidents, including the work of the Spanish inquisition in America, the Mayflower pilgrims’ rigorous and joyless approach to life, and the Salem witch trials, are put in context, in lectures designed to explain rather than moralize. From the colonial period, the series moves on to discuss the role of religion in the creation of the American republic. First in the Revolutionary War, then later in the Civil War, combatants on both sides believed that they were doing God’s will and fighting on the side of the angels. Religious conviction also played a central role in the nineteenth century’s numerous reform movements, but often in contradictory ways. Slaveholders could point to as many biblical passages justifying their way of life as abolitionists could find to condemn them. Temperance, Sabbath keeping, urban reform, and women’s rights all sought justification in the Protestant tradition. A series of shocks complicated the American religious situation in the mid-nineteenth century. The first was the arrival of a large number of Catholic immigrants to what had been, for the preceding two centuries, a largely Protestant place. Catholics from Ireland and, later, Germany, Italy, and Poland, struggled to show that despite their faith and its foreign leader (the Pope), they were entirely loyal to America. At times, even so, they had to protect themselves against organized anti-Catholic political parties and even against the attacks of anti-Catholic mobs. Growing numbers of Jewish immigrants further diversified the urban religious landscape in the later nineteenth century and also struggled against Protestant intolerance. The second shock was the rapid growth of industrial cities and of a huge property-less industrial working class, vulnerable to fluctuations in the business cycle. Religious leaders had to rethink the relationships among virtue, prosperity, and God’s favor in a situation when employment opportunities outstripped the influence of any individual’s will. Did not Jesus, a carpenter’s son, teach charity, poverty, compassion, and sharing, rather than the single-minded entrepreneurial individualism that was winning America’s material rewards? And which was more important: to reform the whole of society along Christian lines or simply to save individual souls, whatever their material circumstances? A third shock came from the nineteenth century’s discoveries in geology, biology, physics, archaeology, and comparative religion, all of which appeared to cast doubt on the reliability and authority of the Bible. Evolution in particular presented a world of constant predation and strife, promising only extinction to the losers, rather than a world whose outward harmony proved the existence of God. Close study of the ruins and texts of the ancient Near East showed that dozens of civilizations had shared with early Judaism its creation and flood myths and its belief in a series of miraculous divine interventions. Perhaps Judaism and Christianity had survived out of this world by a series of historical coincidences that had more to do with Roman imperial power than God’s blessing. The twentieth century inherited these nineteenth-century dilemmas, which continue to resonate up to the present in, for example, the conflict between liberal Protestants and fundamentalists. Later parts of the course will follow them, while paying special attention to the way they affected relations between church and state. Ever since the Revolution, citizens have cherished the First Amendment principles of church-state separation and religious freedom. Mid- twentieth–century cases involving Jehovah’s Witnesses, Christian Scientists, the Amish, and such “cult” religions as the People’s Temple and the “Moonies” forced the Supreme Court to decide where to draw the line between these two principles. The court sometimes shocked citizens, as when in 1962 and 1963, it decreed that school prayers and Bible reading were unconstitutional. America became a great power in the twentieth century and played a leading role in the two world wars and the Cold War. Religious Americans agonized over how they should respond to war. Was it a Christian’s duty to fight “hunnish barbarism” in World War I, as preachers like Billy Sunday believed? Or should they, as a brave minority argued, follow Jesus in turning the other cheek? When the war ended, many of the more bloodthirsty Christians and Jews felt embarrassed to have been so carried away by the call to fight. No sooner had a majority of them concluded that the pacifist option was morally superior, however, than Hitler rose to power. War, and particularly the Holocaust, continue to resonate up to the present and to influence many corners of American religious life. The social revolutions of the twentieth century also had religious consequences. Fundamentalism proved itself adaptable to new technologies, such as radio and television, even to space travel, as Hal Lindsay showed in The Late, Great Planet Earth (1970). Generations of immigrants and their descendants assimilated to American life, abandoning old languages and customs but maintaining their religious allegiances. Catholicism and Judaism both took on a distinctive American flavor, which sometimes caused friction with co-religionists abroad, in Rome and Israel. Religion stood squarely at the center of the upheavals of the 1960s. Martin Luther King, Jr., and most other black civil rights leaders were ministers, inspired by the gospel message. Religious conviction likewise intensified resistance to the Vietnam War and played a key role in energizing the feminist movement Some Americans, disillusioned by the Judeo-Christian tradition, which they blamed for the nation’s woes, turned to the Moslem tradition (the Nation of Islam) or to Asian spirituality, seeking gurus in India or learning Zen Buddhist meditation techniques. At the same time, changes in the immigration laws enabled large numbers of Asian immigrants to move to America, bringing their own traditions and sometimes bumping up against unfamiliar American versions of Buddhism, Islam, and Hinduism. Exploration of new levels of religious diversity in the last three decades will close the series, along with conclusions about the way America’s populations and traditions have nurtured its religious diversity and vitality.

Sociologists in the early twentieth century anticipated that as modern science and technology progressed, they would displace religious explanations of the world altogether. 2. Secularization theory became progressively more complicated. Did secularization mean progressive loss of faith in God, or greater role specialization by churches among all other modern institutions, or creation of alternative means of explaining the world, or the decline of political power for religious groups? 3. European experience gave credence to the theory, but American experience contradicted it. 4. The theory had always been attractive to Marxist social theorists, who were outspoken atheists. The exhaustion of Marxism and the collapse of the Soviet Union contributed to its eclipse. 5. Historical research substantiated the view that the past was in some respects less “religious” and the present in some respects, more “religious” than scholars had long assumed. 6. Religion, far from disappearing from the American public landscape (where, according to the theory, it ought to have disappeared quickest), took on a new importance in the 1980s and 1990s. 7. Science could explain how the world worked but not why. To answer that question, religion remained as important as ever. 8. Neither could science explain moral questions or the old theodicy question, which asks: why do bad things happen if God is good, and why does justice not always prevail?

Religious controversy continued in England at the dawn of the seventeenth century. A. England’s Catholics were disappointed to discover that King James I (1603–1625) did not plan to re-Catholicize England. 1. His mother, Mary Queen of Scots, a Catholic, had been beheaded by Elizabeth, but he had assured his succession to the throne by accepting the Reformation. 2. A Catholic conspiracy to blow up the king and Parliament in 1605 (the Guy Fawkes plot) was discovered. Commemoration of the day became an annual event for Protestants, intensifying in their minds the connection between Catholicism and disloyalty. B. Idealistic Protestants in England, especially those who had sheltered in Geneva during the reign of Mary, wanted to complete the Reformation inside England and purge, or purify, the Church of England of what seemed to them “popish” remnants. We remember these idealists as “Puritans.” 1. They contributed to the writing of the “King James” version of the Bible, the most popular and widespread translation in American history. 2. Some of them believed that the imperfections of the English church justified them in withdrawing from it altogether. They were “separatists,” and a group of them moved first to Holland, then to America on the Mayflower. 3. Other Puritans, believing they had a duty to serve and reform a corrupt church and kingdom, remained in England at first. However, many of them emigrated to the Massachusetts Bay Colony when King James’s son, Charles I, took a Catholic queen (Henrietta Maria, a French princess) and showed favor to Catholics.

Religious controversy continued in England at the dawn of the seventeenth century. A. England’s Catholics were disappointed to discover that King James I (1603–1625) did not plan to re-Catholicize England. 1. His mother, Mary Queen of Scots, a Catholic, had been beheaded by Elizabeth, but he had assured his succession to the throne by accepting the Reformation. 2. A Catholic conspiracy to blow up the king and Parliament in 1605 (the Guy Fawkes plot) was discovered. Commemoration of the day became an annual event for Protestants, intensifying in their minds the connection between Catholicism and disloyalty. B. Idealistic Protestants in England, especially those who had sheltered in Geneva during the reign of Mary, wanted to complete the Reformation inside England and purge, or purify, the Church of England of what seemed to them “popish” remnants. We remember these idealists as “Puritans.” 1. They contributed to the writing of the “King James” version of the Bible, the most popular and widespread translation in American history. 2. Some of them believed that the imperfections of the English church justified them in withdrawing from it altogether. They were “separatists,” and a group of them moved first to Holland, then to America on the Mayflower. 3. Other Puritans, believing they had a duty to serve and reform a corrupt church and kingdom, remained in England at first. However, many of them emigrated to the Massachusetts Bay Colony when King James’s son, Charles I, took a Catholic queen (Henrietta Maria, a French princess) and showed favor to Catholics.

Native Americans had elaborate religious ideas, rituals, and traditions. We must be careful in studying them, partly because nearly all the information we have about them comes from biased European observers and partly because the Indians themselves did not have a word for, or concept of, “religion” as something distinct from their approach to all other aspects of life. Despite intertribal differences, most Indian religions shared several characteristics. Among them were: a belief in the “Great Spirit” who presides over the whole of the world and in the existence of lesser spirits in the natural world, not only in animals and plants but also in trees, rivers, hills, the wind, and the sun. Nearly all the activities of Native Americans took place in a ritual context, as they aimed to propitiate these spirits and assure themselves of divine favor. Some Indians converted to Christianity, but more argued with missionaries (Spanish, British, and French) over what seemed to them its absurdities. Europeans and Euro-Americans were shocked by the strangeness of Indians’ religious practices, such as the self-torture ceremonies of the Mandans, but from our perspective, it is possible to note both similarities and differences in the two civilizations’ religions. I. Native Americans had elaborate religious ideas of their own that sometimes coincided with, and sometimes clashed against, the Europeans’ religious ways. A. They lived in a world full of spirits that needed to be ritually propitiated. B. Records of their discussions with Christian missionaries show us that each side found plenty to criticize in the ideas of the other. C. Historians and anthropologists understand the need for caution in studying Native Americans, because the documents we have about these religions come from European observers, who often misunderstood, and were sometimes hostile to, the Indians’ religions. II. Despite numerous internal differences, most North American Indians’ religions shared several characteristics. A. They believed in a powerful and benign “Great Spirit” and a powerful evil spirit or devil. 1. Techauretanego built sweat lodges, where he prayed to the Great Spirit for protection and health. 2. Cabeza de Vaca heard about the visits of “Evil Thing.” B. They also believed in lesser spirits, inhabiting animals, rivers, the sun, the wind, the trees, and fire. 1. A Narragansett Indian explained to Roger Williams that fire must be a god because of its life-giving character. 2. Father Paul LeJeune described Indians’ faith in animal spirits’ dream visits to sleeping hunters. C. Everyday activities were surrounded by rituals, which were designed to propitiate and win favor from the spirits. 1. Alexander Henry, an English hunter who helped a group of Iroquois kill a bear, watched the women apologizing to it and blowing tobacco smoke into its nostrils. 2. A Montagnais Indian explained to Father LeJeune that the spirit of a beaver visits the cabin of the man who killed it to ensure respectful treatment of its remains. 3. Lewis and Clark witnessed a sex ritual designed to win favor from buffalo spirits. D. Native Americans understood suffering in a religious context. Their religious rituals, to mark D. Native Americans understood suffering in a religious context. Their religious rituals, to mark stages in the life cycle, often involved induced hunger or pain; artist George Catlin witnessed self-torturing ceremonies among the Mandans and Sioux on the Great Plains. E. They believed in an afterlife. 1. Canadian Indians reasoned with Jesuit Father Joseph Jouvency that hell could not be a place of perpetual fire, because there was not enough firewood. 2. A Huron woman warned her husband not to convert to Christianity, because if he went to the Christian heaven, he would find only Frenchmen there and would miss his friends and relatives. 8

Puritans developed their ideas in opposition to the English establishment but found, when they carried the ideas to America, that now they were the establishment. A. The Reformers rejected monastic separation from the world. But some radical Puritans’ dismay at the “popish” contaminations of the church prompted their decision to separate. They founded Plimoth Plantation in 1620. B. The much larger non-separatist Puritan group that settled Massachusetts Bay in 1630 remained nominally loyal to the Church of England. 1. Their leaders, John Winthrop, John Cotton, and others, hoped that they might provide an inspiring example to England. 2. They expected to return victorious. C. In Massachusetts and Connecticut, nevertheless, they established the Congregational system of self-governing churches, as outlined in the Cambridge Platform of 1648. D. Church membership was a prerequisite to participation in politics. Massachusetts Bay and Connecticut approached Calvin’s Genevan ideal. E. Blasphemy and misuse of the Sabbath were offenses. F. Puritans emphasized education. 1. They condemned Catholicism, partly because it kept the ordinary people ignorant. 2. Harvard College was founded in 1636 to train ministers. 3. New communities invested in schools and teachers. 4. New England achieved nearly universal literacyprobably the first society in the world to do so. G. Preaching was the heart of worship. 1. Two Sunday sermons based on biblical

Puritans developed their ideas in opposition to the English establishment but found, when they carried the ideas to America, that now they were the establishment. A. The Reformers rejected monastic separation from the world. But some radical Puritans’ dismay at the “popish” contaminations of the church prompted their decision to separate. They founded Plimoth Plantation in 1620. B. The much larger non-separatist Puritan group that settled Massachusetts Bay in 1630 remained nominally loyal to the Church of England. 1. Their leaders, John Winthrop, John Cotton, and others, hoped that they might provide an inspiring example to England. 2. They expected to return victorious. C. In Massachusetts and Connecticut, nevertheless, they established the Congregational system of self-governing churches, as outlined in the Cambridge Platform of 1648. D. Church membership was a prerequisite to participation in politics. Massachusetts Bay and Connecticut approached Calvin’s Genevan ideal. E. Blasphemy and misuse of the Sabbath were offenses. F. Puritans emphasized education. 1. They condemned Catholicism, partly because it kept the ordinary people ignorant. 2. Harvard College was founded in 1636 to train ministers. 3. New communities invested in schools and teachers. 4. New England achieved nearly universal literacyprobably the first society in the world to do so. G. Preaching was the heart of worship. 1. Two Sunday sermons based on biblical

Puritans developed their ideas in opposition to the English establishment but found, when they carried the ideas to America, that now they were the establishment. A. The Reformers rejected monastic separation from the world. But some radical Puritans’ dismay at the “popish” contaminations of the church prompted their decision to separate. They founded Plimoth Plantation in 1620. B. The much larger non-separatist Puritan group that settled Massachusetts Bay in 1630 remained nominally loyal to the Church of England. 1. Their leaders, John Winthrop, John Cotton, and others, hoped that they might provide an inspiring example to England. 2. They expected to return victorious. C. In Massachusetts and Connecticut, nevertheless, they established the Congregational system of self-governing churches, as outlined in the Cambridge Platform of 1648. D. Church membership was a prerequisite to participation in politics. Massachusetts Bay and Connecticut approached Calvin’s Genevan ideal. E. Blasphemy and misuse of the Sabbath were offenses. F. Puritans emphasized education. 1. They condemned Catholicism, partly because it kept the ordinary people ignorant. 2. Harvard College was founded in 1636 to train ministers. 3. New communities invested in schools and teachers. 4. New England achieved nearly universal literacyprobably the first society in the world to do so. G. Preaching was the heart of worship. 1. Two Sunday sermons based on biblical

Puritans developed their ideas in opposition to the English establishment but found, when they carried the ideas to America, that now they were the establishment. A. The Reformers rejected monastic separation from the world. But some radical Puritans’ dismay at the “popish” contaminations of the church prompted their decision to separate. They founded Plimoth Plantation in 1620. B. The much larger non-separatist Puritan group that settled Massachusetts Bay in 1630 remained nominally loyal to the Church of England. 1. Their leaders, John Winthrop, John Cotton, and others, hoped that they might provide an inspiring example to England. 2. They expected to return victorious. C. In Massachusetts and Connecticut, nevertheless, they established the Congregational system of self-governing churches, as outlined in the Cambridge Platform of 1648. D. Church membership was a prerequisite to participation in politics. Massachusetts Bay and Connecticut approached Calvin’s Genevan ideal. E. Blasphemy and misuse of the Sabbath were offenses. F. Puritans emphasized education. 1. They condemned Catholicism, partly because it kept the ordinary people ignorant. 2. Harvard College was founded in 1636 to train ministers. 3. New communities invested in schools and teachers. 4. New England achieved nearly universal literacyprobably the first society in the world to do so. G. Preaching was the heart of worship. 1. Two Sunday sermons based on biblical

Puritans developed their ideas in opposition to the English establishment but found, when they carried the ideas to America, that now they were the establishment. A. The Reformers rejected monastic separation from the world. But some radical Puritans’ dismay at the “popish” contaminations of the church prompted their decision to separate. They founded Plimoth Plantation in 1620. B. The much larger non-separatist Puritan group that settled Massachusetts Bay in 1630 remained nominally loyal to the Church of England. 1. Their leaders, John Winthrop, John Cotton, and others, hoped that they might provide an inspiring example to England. 2. They expected to return victorious. C. In Massachusetts and Connecticut, nevertheless, they established the Congregational system of self-governing churches, as outlined in the Cambridge Platform of 1648. D. Church membership was a prerequisite to participation in politics. Massachusetts Bay and Connecticut approached Calvin’s Genevan ideal. E. Blasphemy and misuse of the Sabbath were offenses. F. Puritans emphasized education. 1. They condemned Catholicism, partly because it kept the ordinary people ignorant. 2. Harvard College was founded in 1636 to train ministers. 3. New communities invested in schools and teachers. 4. New England achieved nearly universal literacyprobably the first society in the world to do so. G. Preaching was the heart of worship. 1. Two Sunday sermons based on biblical

Puritans developed their ideas in opposition to the English establishment but found, when they carried the ideas to America, that now they were the establishment. A. The Reformers rejected monastic separation from the world. But some radical Puritans’ dismay at the “popish” contaminations of the church prompted their decision to separate. They founded Plimoth Plantation in 1620. B. The much larger non-separatist Puritan group that settled Massachusetts Bay in 1630 remained nominally loyal to the Church of England. 1. Their leaders, John Winthrop, John Cotton, and others, hoped that they might provide an inspiring example to England. 2. They expected to return victorious. C. In Massachusetts and Connecticut, nevertheless, they established the Congregational system of self-governing churches, as outlined in the Cambridge Platform of 1648. D. Church membership was a prerequisite to participation in politics. Massachusetts Bay and Connecticut approached Calvin’s Genevan ideal. E. Blasphemy and misuse of the Sabbath were offenses. F. Puritans emphasized education. 1. They condemned Catholicism, partly because it kept the ordinary people ignorant. 2. Harvard College was founded in 1636 to train ministers. 3. New communities invested in schools and teachers. 4. New England achieved nearly universal literacyprobably the first society in the world to do so. G. Preaching was the heart of worship. 1. Two Sunday sermons based on biblical G. Preaching was the heart of worship. 1. Two Sunday sermons based on biblical texts were the norm. 2. These were complemented by special sermons for fast-days, elections, and executions. 3. Services took place in plain meeting houses. 4. Psalms were “lined out” and sung without accompaniment. H. The Puritans were intolerant and repressive of dissent. 1. Radical separatist Roger Williams and Antinomian Anne Hutchinson were expelled. 2. Facial branding with “H” (for “heresy”) and flogging were the punishments for persistent Quakers. Two Quaker men and a woman were hanged in Boston in 1659. 3. Baptists, like Anne Eaton (wife of the governor of New Haven), were censured and excommunicated.

Puritans developed their ideas in opposition to the English establishment but found, when they carried the ideas to America, that now they were the establishment. A. The Reformers rejected monastic separation from the world. But some radical Puritans’ dismay at the “popish” contaminations of the church prompted their decision to separate. They founded Plimoth Plantation in 1620. B. The much larger non-separatist Puritan group that settled Massachusetts Bay in 1630 remained nominally loyal to the Church of England. 1. Their leaders, John Winthrop, John Cotton, and others, hoped that they might provide an inspiring example to England. 2. They expected to return victorious. C. In Massachusetts and Connecticut, nevertheless, they established the Congregational system of self-governing churches, as outlined in the Cambridge Platform of 1648. D. Church membership was a prerequisite to participation in politics. Massachusetts Bay and Connecticut approached Calvin’s Genevan ideal. E. Blasphemy and misuse of the Sabbath were offenses. F. Puritans emphasized education. 1. They condemned Catholicism, partly because it kept the ordinary people ignorant. 2. Harvard College was founded in 1636 to train ministers. 3. New communities invested in schools and teachers. 4. New England achieved nearly universal literacyprobably the first society in the world to do so. G. Preaching was the heart of worship. 1. Two Sunday sermons based on biblical G. Preaching was the heart of worship. 1. Two Sunday sermons based on biblical texts were the norm. 2. These were complemented by special sermons for fast-days, elections, and executions. 3. Services took place in plain meeting houses. 4. Psalms were “lined out” and sung without accompaniment. H. The Puritans were intolerant and repressive of dissent. 1. Radical separatist Roger Williams and Antinomian Anne Hutchinson were expelled. 2. Facial branding with “H” (for “heresy”) and flogging were the punishments for persistent Quakers. Two Quaker men and a woman were hanged in Boston in 1659. 3. Baptists, like Anne Eaton (wife of the governor of New Haven), were censured and excommunicated.

I. The European settlement of colonial America early exhibited religious and ethnic diversity, including English Anglicans and Catholics, Puritans, Antinomians, Baptists, Quakers, and Scottish Presbyterians, Lutherans from Germany and Sweden, Dutch Calvinists, and Jewish merchants. A. Each colony had its own distinct religious character. B. In the short run, most were intolerantonly a few favored tolerance from the outset. C. In the long run, this diversity laid the foundation of American religious pluralism. II. Virginia Anglicans, and later those in the Carolinas and Georgia, had emigrated more for reasons of profit than piety. A. The Jamestown settlement tried to enforce regular churchgoing, but geographical dispersal to plant tobacco soon made it impossible. B. The settlement undertook a mission to the Indians who lived in the neighborhood. One early success was the conversion of Pocahantas and her marriage to John Rolfe. C. Churchgoing soon became an occasional, matter-of-fact duty rather than a central preoccupation of settlers’ lives, as it was in Puritan New England. 1. The Book of Common Prayer and the King James Bible were central to the religious routine. 2. Sermons often had nautical themes, appropriate to colonists who had crossed the Atlantic. D. Vestries declined to appoint priests to the parishes and so retained more power than their English counterparts. E. Early slaveholders doubted the wisdom of converting their slaves to Christianity. F. Church of England priest Morgan Godwin went to Virginia in 1684 and was shocked to find the neglect of religion there. 1. Clergy did not dare give their parishioners necessary criticism, because they were financially dependent on them. 2. They failed in their duty to convert Indians and slaves and permitted “heathen” practices to flourish.

Early Buddhism: denial that God exists or that the Self exists, regardless of wealth or power, caster, anyone can achieve enlightenment, Principal radical egalitariansm

Early Buddhism: denial that God exists or that the Self exists, regardless of wealth or power, caster, anyone can achieve enlightenment, Principal radical egalitariansm

Early Buddhism: denial that God exists or that the Self exists, regardless of wealth or power, caster, anyone can achieve enlightenment, Principal radical egalitariansm

Early Buddhism: denial that God exists or that the Self exists, regardless of wealth or power, caster, anyone can achieve enlightenment, Principal radical egalitariansm

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1.
Religious Diversity in America “ Autumn Lotus Shrine,” Sraddha Van Dyke. Located in rural Buckingham, Virginia, Satchidananda Ashram,Yogaville is a multifaith spiritual community founded by Sri Swami Satchidananda. Their Lotus Shrine, an interfaith temple open to the community, is pictured here amidst the autumn leaves. Photo by Sraddha Van Dyke.

2.
Religious Diversity in America Why is religion so diverse in America?

3.
Religious Diversity in America separation of church and state SOURCES: Patrick Allitt. Major Problems in American Religious History . (Wadsworth, 1999); Catherine Albanese. America: Religion and Religions . (Wadsworth, 2006); Sydney Alstrom. A Religious History of the American People (Yale University Press, 1974).

4.
Religious Diversity in America Church needed to promote themselves without the aid of government.

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Questions: God in America <ul><li>The American story is many things, including the story of &quot;us in relationship with God,&quot; says religion professor Stephen Prothero at the beginning of this episode. At the end, he compares the American story to the Exodus story in the Bible. Why do you think the Puritans saw themselves as a New American Adam and Eve -- new people with a new identity? How was the American experience of freedom and liberty like the story of the Exodus? What made Americans see themselves as &quot;chosen people”? </li></ul><ul><li>What role did religion play in the cultural misunderstandings and colonial relations of Europeans and Native peoples in the New World? How did the religious worldviews of the Europeans and Indians differ? How does this reflect a clash between tribal and early modern religious worldviews? </li></ul><ul><li>What did the Puritans hope to achieve? What was the goal of their religious and political community? Why did they consider conformity so necessary for their cohesion? </li></ul><ul><li>What did conversion mean for the Puritans, and what does it mean today? Is it a single, blinding moment of faith, or is it a prolonged and arduous journey that proceeds in fits and starts, a process that requires commitment and tenacity? </li></ul>ANSWER IN GROUPS OF TWO.

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Questions: God in America <ul><li>&quot;Anne Hutchinson is the future,&quot; says religion professor Stephen Prothero . What links do you see between her 17th-century understanding that &quot;God is speaking to each of us,&quot; as Prothero describes it, and contemporary American spirituality? Between her religious experience and George Whitefield's understanding of &quot;inward change&quot;? </li></ul><ul><li>Evangelical preacher George Whitefield embodied &quot;this perennial radical Protestant idea of immediate connection between God and the individual soul,&quot; as religion professor Stephen Marini puts it. Historian Harry Stout calls Whitefield &quot;the divine dramatist,&quot; and Daniel Dreisbach , a law and religion scholar, says Whitefield brought Americans together &quot;by a common message of revival.&quot; How would you describe Whitefield's message of rebirth? </li></ul><ul><li>What democratic overtones do you hear in early expressions of both Puritan and evangelical Protestantism in America? How did religion penetrate early American political thought? What did religious choice and freedom have to do with political choice and freedom in American history? How did personal religious experience of the revivals and Great Awakenings of the 18th century influence the American Revolution? </li></ul>ANSWER IN GROUPS OF TWO.